layout.expressive:urban-noir[customized]
art.by:icedetective[ambisis]
inspired.lyrics:days-go-by[dirty-vegas]
inspired.beauty:natascha[mcelhone]
inspired.words:athena[herald]

The cell cot isn't all that uncomfortable, Athena's decided. She's not big enough for it to fell cramped, and she's slept on harder surfaces before. Ignoring curious stares and suggestive remarks from the cell across from her isn't anything new either. So when the officer unlocks the door, she contemplates staying for a moment, keeping her eyes closed as she pretends to sleep. But then there's a second set of footsteps, the sound of a heavy sigh over her, and she opens her eyes, propping herself up on one elbow, to see a tired and frustrated David looking down at her, his arms crossed over his chest.

"Figures they'd call you," she tells him before closing her eyes again, settling back into the cot.

"They didn't call me," he says. "You did."

One eye opens again to look him over. "Oh. Don't remember that."

"Clearly," he sighs. "Do you even remember how you got here?"

"I think I tried to pick a fight with a homeless guy over by the zoo," she answers, already growing bored.

"Close," he says, "except it was outside your building, and it was a street light."

"Huh," she says, holding her hands up to examine them. "That explains the cast."

( Tell me something I haven't already heard. )

Phyllis: "Suppose I let you off with a warning this time."
Walter: "Suppose it doesn't take."
612 words

Athena stares sullenly at her reflection in the mirror, silently cursing the horribly uncomfortable flower girl dress she's wearing and the woman fussing over her - a cousin of her mother's she's never seen before and will never see again, who came down from New York City for the wedding and speaks with an almost indecipherable Russian accent. Her mother sits nearby, wearing a bathrobe to cover her undergarments as she puts the finishing touches on her hair and makeup, aided by more relatives Athena never knew she had. They've all come out of the woodwork to witness this special, perfect day.

"Cheer up, Verochka," her mother chides, looking over. "Today is a celebration, not a funeral. Smile for me."

Athena obeys, plastering on a smile that will become all too comfortable in the years to come. Satisfied, her mother spritzes perfume onto her neck and wrists before rising to finally don the abhorrently lavish wedding gown her soon-to-be husband had specially made.

"Your mother is so beautiful today," the cousin sighs as she douses Athena's head in hairspray, making her cough as it coats her nine-year old lungs, nothing compared to the damage she'll inflict as an adult.

Finally, they all line up just like they'd practiced, waiting outside the church sanctuary for the string quartet to start up the wedding march. After the first phrase, the doors swing open and the bridesmaids and groomsmen proceed down the aisle smiling and laughing. Then it's Athena's turn. She starts on her way, smile stuck on just as her mother requested, tossing rose petals this way and that. Everyone sighs and whispers to the person next to them about how adorable she looks, and how sweet it is that he would make her a part of the ceremony. That's when she sees him on the altar, nearly five year old Kevin fighting to stand still next to him with the ring pillow. She knows he's watching her, judging her, and for a moment she can't help but freeze down the aisle.

It doesn't feel right being here, in this dress, watching her mother marry another man. It isn't right.

She swallows hard as she sees his eyes narrow ever so slightly, knowing that she's the only one who notices. Quickly, she finishes emptying her basket on the floor and takes her place at the end of the bridesmaids, her eyes down and breathing fast as she hears the oohs and ahs accompanying her mother's entrance. After that, she can't remember any of the ceremony, not even that her hand had tried to raise itself when the priest asked for any objections to the marriage. All she remembers is the look her now step-father gave her at the start of the reception, and how it affirmed the fear that had consumed her thoughts earlier.

He was going to make her pay for ruining this day for him, even if it was the slightest offense. And she knew then that this wasn't right, that none of it was, that none of it would ever be. But there was nothing she could do.

"Suddenly it came over me that everything would go wrong."
529 words

Most people are convinced I'm an atheist. I'm not. I definitely believe in God. I don't love Him, and I'm pretty sure He's got nothing but contempt for me. But you can't hate something that doesn't exist, so... I'm a bitter agnostic, I guess.

I used to pray when I was little. I used to believe what my father told me, that God was up in Heaven, looking down on us and protecting us. I stopped believing in a benevolent God the day he died, but I didn't stop believing completely. Holding onto the idea that God's got it out for me has been the only comforting thought in my life for the past twenty-eight years. Because the alternative is that all the shit that's come my way has been by random chance, and I can't believe that anyone would fall on the bad side of the coin that many times.

But knowing that God is up there, plotting the next way to fuck with me, is still bizarrely comforting. I guess there's something about the idea that there is a higher power, even if it is vaguely malevolent, that just helps to put me at ease. Maybe it's because I can assign the blame to someone other than myself and the human race, which makes it all easier to swallow.

Otherwise, I would have taken myself out of this world a long time ago.

242 words

My name is Athena, and I'm powerless.

I've been powerless all my life. At first it was natural, the way you're supposed to be when you're a child. "Innocent" is what everyone else would call it, I guess. And I was, until I turned nine. That was when I found out how cruel the world really was, and I became truly powerless. I couldn't save my father from his fate, and I couldn't save me from mine.

I started drinking early on in high school. It started as something I did at parties every now and then, a momentary distraction from my life. By sixteen, I probably could have outlasted an Irish dockworker. I always told myself that it was okay, given my circumstances. It was genetic, and therefore unavoidable. And if you grew up the way I did, you'd be a drinker too.

This isn't my first time in the program, and I know it won't be the last. Sobriety has a tendency not to stick for very long with me. Sometimes I've wanted it to, but I reach a point where drinking is my only way to cope without completely losing it. Part of me wishes that wasn't so, that I could learn to live without alcohol. But the other part of me is perfectly happy and comfortable with slowly drinking myself to death, and that's the side I listen to. Because deep down, I'm resigned to the fact that this is all part of God's plan for me, and I can't change that. If I've been set on a path to destroy myself, then so be it. I wouldn't be the first. And as long as it would mean a reprieve, I'm okay with giving up any power I might have, if I even had it to begin with.

I've been powerless all my life. I honestly don't know how well I'd fare if that changed.

336 words

The sun is just starting to rise when Athena arrives on scene, ducking under the police tape closing off the dark alley. It's a bad part of town, one she's been to more often than any other. Drug dealers and hookers aren't out of the ordinary; gang wars have left more than few a bodies for her to clean up. But the sight that greets her in the alley is by far the worst she's seen.

Sandra stands at the entry to the alley, staring out at the street, unwilling to face what's behind her. David emerges from behind the dumpster, wiping his mouth. He lights up a cigarette as Athena ties her hair back and crouches down to examine the body.

"You ever see a beating like this?" he asks her, doing his best to avoid looking down.

"Nope," she responds, staring closely at the mangled remains, doing her best to put the memories of her father's corpse out of her mind. "You find any ID on him?"

"Like I'm gonna stick my hands in that," he scoffs, risking a glance down. "Someone wanted this poor son of a bitch dead, that's for sure. First glance, coroner said that under all that blunt force trauma? There's knife wounds, burns, couple of bullets."

"Robbery?" Athena asks, getting up and moving to the dumpster.

"Looks like," David affirms, watching her open it up and pull out a neatly folded stack of clothes. "Or maybe not."

She picks up the wallet perched on top, setting the clothes down as she opens it. For a moment, all she can do is stare at the driver's license sitting in it. Then, with a wry smile, she tosses it to David.

"So," she says, catching his eye, "do I laugh now, or wait 'til it gets funny."

With that she walks away, back under the tape into the early morning light, leaving behind a bewildered Sandra and David.

"What was all that?" Sandra asks. David shrugs, opening the wallet to look at the license, letting out a heavy sigh when he reads the name on it: William Herald.

"Christ," he mutters, tossing the wallet to Sandra so she can see. "It's her step-dad."

"Do I laugh now, or wait 'til it gets funny?"
371 words

Nobody talked after my father my died. Not for a long time. My mother simply moved in silence as she collected his belongings, signed the paperwork. I didn't say anything because I was waiting for her. And because earlier, William had dragged me into the hallway and hit me when I started crying. He said I shouldn't make a fuss. What did he expect? I was nine years old, but I knew what it meant when they pulled the sheet over my father's face. I knew what the too clean tiling and brushed metal doors and eery fucking silence meant. What else could I do but start to cry? But he hit me and told me that big girls don't cry. That Mama wasn't crying. She wasn't making a sound. She was just standing there, staring at the sheet, fiddling with the straps on her purse. Frozen whore.

Nobody said anything when we left, either. William and my mother just held hands across from me in the car. I pressed myself against the window, as far away from his as possible, and focused on not making a sound. I didn't want to get hit again.

We walked silently into the apartment and I ran to my room, crawling into bed and burying my face into my pillow. I was still too afraid to cry, to afraid to make any sound, so I just lay there, listening to the nothingness around me. Then I heard the footsteps going down the hall to my mother's room, the squeak of mattress springs as somebody sat down on the bed. After a while I could hear my mother sobbing, the sound muffled through the walls. I was about to start crying again when I heard her speak, for the first time since we'd left that morning.

"Thank God he's gone."

I clutched my pillow tight as I listened to her sobs fade to soft laughs before they became the noises familiar to me every night that William visited. My jaw tightened and I shut my eyes as I cursed my mother for breaking the silence that had swallowed us before. I desperately wanted it back. At least when nobody talked, I could still pretend that we had been a family.

Mr. Chips: "Silence! Silence! I'll have no more of it!"
John Colley: "No more silence, sir?"
396 words

84: "I don't see how you could ever get old in a world that's always young." - Goodbye, Mr. Chips
285 words

83: "You coward! Are you bragging to the stars?" - A Midsummer Night's Dream
1223 words

It was a sadly familiar routine. Athena hadn't shown up for work; without saying a word, David had left the precinct to find her. On the way over he had called her phone, getting voicemail the first two times and a groggy, "David, go back to the precinct," the last time. But he'd continued on, pulling up in front of her building and greeting the doorman with a wave as he walked in. A few moments later, he was knocking on her door, softly demanding to be let in. When she opened the door for him the first time around, it caught him off guard.

"You, uh ... you didn't come in today," he said, looking around. She had gone back to the couch where she was nursing her 10 AM whiskey, but she didn't look like he was expecting her to. No red eyes from crying all night, no trashed apartment from an alcohol fueled rage. "Are you ..."

"Okay?" she scoffed. "David, I'm fine. I quit."

( Why deny who we are? )

Athena Herald
Original Character
"[Human] Nature... is what we are put in this world to rise above."
546 words